Lifestyles of the Bitch and Famous

Bitches? Oui!

Famous? Slightly.

Last Wednesday was my monthly night out with a group of mommy friends. It's called Dinner Club. We're all English speakers and mostly American. Every month we try a trendy restaurant in one of Paris's twenty arrondissements.

Out of the ten women who are there, I like half of them. The other half just entertain me (and unknowingly provide blog fodder). Some of these women are married to slightly famous French men. Their professions consist of an acting agent, a philosopher, a Minister of Something in Daddy (oops, I mean President) Sarkozy's government, cousin to the Duke of Paris, and a scion of French banking royalty.

Sometimes these moms can get très très bitchy. For instance, as we were discussing the approaching school holidays which started in Paris on Monday, one mommy decided to start a round-table discussion about who's vacationing where and with what staff. The conversation went like this:

NYC Mom: We're going to Morocco for 2 weeks. I've hired a chef to cook authentic Moroccan dishes for us.

London Mom: I've rented a house in Florida and the nanny's coming with us for 2 weeks.

Boston Mom: Me too! My nanny is only coming for a week. (Insert collective gasp from the moms).

Chicago Mom: Oh that's too bad she's only available for a week. How ever are you going to manage?

Boston Mom: I don't even want to think about it. Dear Husband is in China so I am completely on my own with the kids!

La Mom: Well, I'm staying in Paris and taking Big Fry to museum exhibits, kid's workshops, the Cité des Sciences, the circus, out for hot chocolate at Angelina, a tea party at La Durée, and the Jardin d'Acclimatation. (Insert collective look of pity from the other moms)

London Mom: How lovely! But, you should be taking the kids on vacation to the US. That's what everybody does during the school hols.

(Sidebar: Well, that's news to me! This is my first school vacation to deal with. I thought I was being super-mom by scheduling a ton of activities for Big Fry and making sure we spend quality time together actually doing things TOGETHER. Now I have to worry about 2 week school vacations every 2 months and plan accordingly because that's what you do in the posh 16th arrondissement? Uh, don't think that's gonna happen!)

So I replied with the first thing that came to my mind:

La Mom: Seems like vacations are necessities for you. I consider them luxuries Madame Lifestyles of the Bitch and Famous.

(London Mom didn't speak to me for the rest of the night).

Cheers!